Roses Only Bloom Once
by The StripedHatter
Summary: Kid Flash mindlessly counts down the minutes until she'll finally crack the sorcerer's cold front. .:. Requested genderbend, including some Flinx and the H.I.V.E. Five. Not too sure on the genres. Oneshot.


**Sorry for being so absent! I've had so much going on, and I've only had computer access one third of the time. Anyways, here's a genderbend request. I was hoping to include more of the guys (girls...?), but I found it difficult to do so and keep them in character. So, sorry about that.**

 **~For ObeliskX~**

 **Hope it turned out okay, At the moment I'm a little distracted by my 500lb cat sitting on the laptop.**

* * *

Just because you check your watch doesn't mean you have something to wait for, or that you actually care what numbers the hands rest on. Sometimes you just want to do _something_ because the stillness is killing you, because you've got a jittery feeling that just won't go away.

I guess that's the kind of feeling I get when I'm waiting for the baddies to show up, in the simplest terms that a person can understand. This buzz builds up inside of me, and it's clawing at the seams to burst out. My body was made into a generator of sorts, made to turn all income of calories into energy, energy that if isn't used up, bottles up and deteriorates my simple sanity.

When people ask why I became a superhero, I can't always formulate a straight answer. Why I became super? That part's easy. I got curious, and so inspired by my Aunt's ability to achieve the impossible. In most common terms, I blew myself up. There was a seventy-two percent chance I'd come out alive, so it wasn't as if I was suicidal. I knew it would work. So there's also the how.

But being super, came my choice. Why _hero_? Heroes don't get paid for their full-time job, and I'll still be labeled as the freak-show nerd in school. Always will be. It would be so much easier to flip the other way, to do as I please and not think twice about who I hurt. I wouldn't have to bend over for anyone, and who cares if I got paid? I'd get what I want for free.

So no, I don't have a straight answer. I question myself sometimes, even. But don't get me wrong. There is an answer, it's just bent and misshaped a little. It's a feeling, and I'd never be able to put it in words. It's this feeling when I rescue someone from a fire and my head feels a little clearer, when I lock up a ruthless criminal and the world feels that much brighter. I know I'm being useful, that even when I'm not lathered in money, I, no matter what identity I'm in, am appreciated.

Because I care, there are people to care about.

I'd have to hope that's what goes through other heroes' heads as well.

Hero or villain, whichever act I complete, this vibration of my world only dies down when I push myself to my limits, when I know I've done more than I'm capable of. Maybe that's why I'm so interested in giving people the chance to become more than they previously thought themselves worth.

Maybe that's why I'm sitting on a rooftop, swinging my legs off the edge, and watching the clock tower quietly as the minutes tick by; waiting. I could probably loop around, looking for crimes here and there to stall, but I don't want to miss a minute of what comes next.

.:..:..:.

After a few more minutes of listlessly watching the metal hands of the clock circle around, I found myself engaged with the H.I.V.E. Five. As I often do. I could always leave it to someone else, but I've got a mission. And Kid Flash never abandons her top priority missions.

Just as the man in pink makes a move on the big jewels, I speed over and rest my head in my hand, elbow on the counter. I offer him a perfect, long-stemmed rose. "Hey good-lookin'. How's it cookin'?"

His head tipped back slightly and a bit to the left. "You again. Stalking me?"

I snorted, shoving the rose in his vibrant hair underneath the dark band holding it together, "You wish. I am glad to see you every time I do, though."

"And why's that?"

"Because it gives me another chance to convert you," I shrugged casually.

"Nice delusion, but it ain't happening." He stepped back and blasted a pink ball of, something, at me. I was always curious as to what that was. Electricity? Magic? So when I reappeared behind him, I voiced my question.

"So pinky, what is this stuff, anyways?"

He aimed and tried again, slurring together waves of the electricity/magic as a wall of it came my way. As usual, I dodged, almost squeaking when one grazed my arm. "Magic, I draw it from nature." He used both hands to send a razor-shaped attack. "So I _never,_ run out."

This time, dodging the magic, I ran into Billie Numerous, and she immediately formed a box around me. Great. I spin in a circle, and as expected, there aren't any spaces. Gizma flies above, gripping bags of valuables and fitting a ring on her finger. "Not getting away this time, Speedy."

I slump slightly, "It's Kid Flash," I mumbled.

"She's right," Hex shoved his way past a Numerous, "Speedy has more class."

"And less charisma," I added brightly, taking a running start towards the boy. I grip his shoulders and jump, doing a flip over his head. Bending my knees as I land, I take off running again. It's hardly a second before I find myself encased in a strong grasp. I groan and sag into the arms of Mammoth. "Come on Lucky! That is your nickname, right?"

He growled a little and took a step closer. "We're through with the Brotherhood, but that doesn't mean we won't take whatever means necessary to keep you down."

"Well the six of- hey. Where's See-More?"

"Right here," she said gleefully as she stepped in front of me. Then she pressed a button on the side of her… eye, and a bright light flashed and temporarily blinded me.

"Hey Hex," I hear Gizma giggle dimly in the background. "Nice flower."

.:..:..:.

"It isn't as if I don't like you, or that I don't appreciate the effort. I do, really. Nobody else has gone through the trouble before." I looked blandly at the crumpled rose in my hand. "But I can't be anything other than what I am." My gaze shifted to the unconscious Kid Flash, and I almost jumped when I found her awake and gripping the bars of her confinement.

"You can, you're just not trying hard enough. I know that, because deep down inside, you do too. You're hoping that I'm right, you want me to be."

"And how do you know that?" My fist closed around the flower.

She stood up, "Because you know this cage won't hold me. What reason do you have for me to escape?"

I stood up as well from where I was sitting in a corner chair with my foot against the wall. When I was standing in front of her, I reached between the bars and just barely grazed her cheek. I watched as her eyes closed in a fluttery motion. My fingers traveled down her chin, her arm, then pressed the withered rose into her palm. "Why ask questions when you can just _do_?"

Her sky blue eyes opened and looked at me curiously. She sped off and I straightened. I was about to turn when she appeared again, that stupid beret on her head and a bag with the Eiffel tower printed on the side. "Croissant?" She held the bag up to me.

I scowled and shoved the bag away, back through the bars she once again put herself behind. She turned sideways and slipped her lithe body through the bars, leaving pastries and hat on the floor.

"If I ran away now, that would feel like giving up." She shook her head, "And I'm not giving up on you."

Stepping back, I hovered my hand over the comm. button. I glanced at her again, her round eyes never leaving my face. Huffing slightly, I made my way back over to her. I pressed my lips to her masked forehead, but I could still feel the heat she gave off through the material. "You know, our communication systems have a delay of two seconds," I mumbled lowly.

Turning around, I pressed the button and spoke into the speaker. "Kid's loose, engage." And when I looked back, she was gone, leaving only a bag of croissants, that silly hat, and that darkened, beaten rose. I bent down to pick it up, twirling it in my fingers. Smirking, I looked again at the cage. "I guess it's a good thing you never really run away, isn't it?"

.:..:..:.

"Hex, why do we never upgrade the cage?" See-More looked up from her Rubik Cube suddenly.

Gizma stopped typing away at the computer at the mention. She turned around and faced the boy. "Yeah, the stupid girl keeps getting away. You're not double-crossing us, are ya?"

He flipped his sketch-pad cover down and sighed. "If I were doing that, would you exist at his current moment?" And he walked off to his room. And no, the pages of his sketchbook didn't hide a carefully poised drawing of the infamous Kid Flash, rose clutched delicately in her fingers.


End file.
